General Chat

Another foggy morning, took longer to burn off this morning, it was around 11 am before it had all cleared to a very sunny, but chilly day! It got down to around -2C last night, and "they" are saying it will go that low again tonight! It was really strange around 8 or 9 am ............. we were already in the clear, although I couldn't see the trees or houses on the next street over. Bu the light around here was like that very clear cold bright that you often see after snow!

There wasn't any snow! But there is snow on the mountains on the north shore of the harbour. Skiing season has already begun at them all.

Ann ............ there will be no celebration of Christmas officially here, we would be able to eat Christmas cake, pudding etc, and possibly also order in a turkey dinner, to eat in our own rooms. However there will be a new experience ....... the Jewish festival of Hanukkah (or Chanukah as they spell it in this place) starts on the evening of Christmas Day and continues for 7 or 8 nights. There is special food connected with the celebrations, so it is going to be vey interesting!

Keep warm everyone!

Sylvia it is so sad when those things we always did and take for granted come to an end. You now have to find another way to have something special to look forward to at Christmas. Can you and OH still manage to go out to a restaurant for a meal. Or is there anything special planned where you are living. At least you have seen your daughter so that is something.

We're having some sunny but chilly days, and there was quite a lot of fog around this morning.

My heating and electricity is included in my rent now, so I have no idea how much it costs!

I finally made the decision today, and cancelled our trip on the train to Halifax for Christmas. I just cannot manage the careful watching that OH now needs. I'd be awake 24/7 watching to see if he left the room in the train or hotels.

So, I've been feeling pretty sad this afternoon.

Keep warm everyone

My gas plus electricity bill for November was £172. I don’t usually have the CH on between 10am and 4.30 pm and usually run it at about 16/degrees until I might turn it up to 18/19 around 7.30 pm. But we had some cold days in November when the heating was turned on earlier. Most cooking is done in the air frier but I did use the oven a couple of times.el prices have certainly increased.

Afternoon all
It has been a crisp winters day but with a nippy wind and plenty of sunshine. i planted about 60 bulbs that have been waiting for the weather to improve so i could get to the pots. I managed to fill two pots and I still have just a few left.

Daughter was supposed to come home at 2.30 to help shift what's left of the topsoil into the polytunnel We were going to drag the tarp around to the back then transfer it into the tunnel. But....of course, she didn't make it time for the 2 bus and now wont be home until its dark so a wasted afternoon.

The forecast for the rest of the week is more gales hence I so wanted to get the soil shifted before then!

So i'm not a happy bunny at all!

So indoors now with a coffee, heating on and resting.

All my rooms have their own temp control for the heating so can set the temp to what we need. If i set al the rooms to say 21 degrees. it would come on when it falls below that temp but in my bedroom its hovers around 16 degrees and i hardly put the heating on as I hate a hot r bedroom, makes me wheezy.

Never put the heating on in the bathroom as you are only in the shower and then out so no point Its not cold in there anyway.
My hot water is not controlled by us and comes on when the temp drops below 50 degrees or at midnight until 4am We never have not got hot water. But this is all electric.

My old house was oil heating and that is very expensive now to heat a house.

Hope everyone looking today is well and keeping warm :-D

Florence in the hebrides

Hot tea brings back a bad memory. when my daughter was three and my friends little firl was two. Friend was oversue pregnant and I was staying with her and her family down near Plymouth (my OH was away at sea in the RN. A group of 4 or 5 mums were in the garden and some had pced cups of tea on the ground a while ago including pregnant friend when her little girl ran to see her and kicked the cup over and scalded her little foot. I can still hear her scream. And she still has the scar to this day, very feint but still there.

You are right about heating up water in the short term anyway Ann. Water has the highest specific heat capacity of any liquid. That is the amount of kilojoules of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 kg of water by 1 degree C. It takes a lot of energy to raise the temperature in the first place, but equally, the water holds onto that energy, so it cools down slowly compared to other liquids. That is why toddlers can scald themselves with a cup of tea even though it was made ages ago and the mum didn’t think that it would still be hot.
I knew teaching Physics would come in useful one day :-D

Thank you Linda I had not seen that but, as I say we and now I always have left the water heater on when we go away,

You aren’t supposed to turn the water heating off completely when you go away because of the danger of Legionnaires disease. The plumber who installed the thermostat pointed out that it has a function to prevent Legionaries . I copied the paragraph below from the blurb.

“Legionnaires’ disease is a potentially fatal type of pneumonia that is contracted by inhaling water droplets containing Legionella bacteria. Legionella bacteria can develop in water that has been exposed to impurities like rust, algae and limescale, in temperatures between 20°C and 45°C. The bacteria are dormant below 20°C and do not survive above 60°C. Bacteria Prevention mode will activate if your domestic water hasn’t been heated for at least two consecutive hours in the last 48 hours. This can happen if there is a gap of more than 48 hours in your hot water heating schedule or if you are away from home for longer than 48 hours. “

It means that when I go on holiday the thermostat will periodically heat the water to kill any bacteria.
I always wondered why when you go into toilets in public buildings, they often have signs warning that the hot water is very hot. I wondered why they just didn’t turn the temperature down, but of course they can’t because it has to be hot enough to kill the bacteria. The default temperature for the hot water on my Nest thermostat is high enough to do this, you can turn it down, but it warns you not to.

good morning all from a wet Gloucestershire. Can't complain as we had a few sunnt days. Hope the rain doesn't last long though some people are only just drying out.

Linda that sounds a quite complicated heating system but it is good that you have got it worked out and as you like it to be.

Florence When I go away I turn the heating down but leave it on including the water heater because I was once told that if you let the water go cold it then costs much more to heat it up again than if it retains heat while you are away. The only time we switched it off completely when it came time to turn it back on the boiler wouldn't light.

The heating is a Nest Florence, you can either set it so that it learns your routine as you turn the dial up and down, so it switches itself on and off automatically. The problem with that is that it tends to come on in the middle of the night in order to have the house hot for the morning.Or you can switch that off and have it like the old style schedule which you set. I always have it like that. It also has a function so that if the heating is on and both phones are out of the house , it will turn the heat down to save money. As it is connected to the phones, it knows when you come within a certain distance of the house, so turns the heat up again. You can easily switch that off if you don’t want it, but we always use it. The problem was that when the first thermostat we had stopped working and we replaced it, I hadn’t set it up properly, but I have sorted it out now and all is well again. I also like it because you can see what is happening and control it from wherever you are in the world by looking at the app on the phone.

We had a walk into town and bought some stamps and posted the cards. There were only twenty four for the post, so we are Billy no mates compared to you Florence. We also have some for neighbours, family etc, which don’t get posted to save the money.

Morning all
Not too bad here as wind has died down but still windy after storm Connor. i ventured out for the first time in a few days to the recycling bin and it was surprisingly not too cold!
I have Tesco coming between 12-1 today which is good as I hate it when its at the end of the day. At least afterwards i can then get on with other things.

Linda, I have been buying books of stamps with my shopping order so i dont have to buy 60 odd stamps all in one go! Why on earth have you not got a timer for your heating? I used to have 3 programmes a day for heating & hot water so i would set it for when I needed it on 7 days a week. It cant be right coming home to a cold house surely? I have never heard of your system where if your phones are away from the house it wont come on??

Whenever we went on a family holiday back in the day even only for say a long weekend, i would programme the heating to come on for 2 hours an day to keep the house from getting damp but turned the hot water off as that would have been a waste.

Sylvia, will the place you now stay in not have xmas cake or xmas pudding? Can you buy a small one for yourself or get daughter to send one to you?

Oh my the weather has suddenly changed in the last 5 minutes as now its raining and I can't see the hills as covered in fog!!

Oh well better get on with some chores before my shopping arrives.

have a good day everyone looking in

Florence in the hebrides

It is good to see you posting Sylvia. I hope that the removal company come back and finish what they should have done in the first place.
This morning, I went to Esme’s school bakery, OH went for the first time last week, but he chickened out today. He said that he needed to get his hair cut, as he doesn’t have much left, I really can’t tell the difference.
This afternoon, I sat down and wrote all of the Xmas cards. I did a generic letter on the computer to enclose with some of them, but then added a lot of individual hand writing to each letter. I think that I will have to take a mortgage out to cover the postage :-)
Last night we went round to my daughters and had dinner with them and didn’t get back until late. As we were out, the heating goes off when I senses that both our phones leave the house, so it was really cold when we came back. I was so cold in bed that I had to go and get a blanket. I will be glad when spring comes

names ................ losing them would usually have been my problem, but I have so little space compared to the house that I'll be OK, as long as I don't move them into one of the boxes in the storage room!

Florence ........ my birthday is in early January!!

So I'm hiding both OH's and my Christmas presents, as well as 2 birthday cards for me. Daughter bought not only a Christmas card but a Birthday card for OH to give me, so he has the Christmas card in its envelope leaning against a photo on his chest of cards. He has already pointed it out to me twice yesterday and once today ;-)

Daughter didn't know that I had given him a selection of cards of all kinds, including blank cards, so that he wouldn't worry about it.

I'm really tired today ........ daughter was like a whirlwind, intent on sorting out boxes for me! She's left me a lot to get rid of, as we found that the moving company had not done what we'd asked in a couple of cases, so I have very old bills and things to get rid that they should have taken away for shredding. I am still in touch with the owner of that company, and she's told me several times just to ask for anything and she'll help me. So I'll call her when I've done the double check to make nothing important is in there.

I'm going to miss Christmas pudding and cake this year :-(

Afternoon everyone looking in today.
Its a calm day but there was a heavy frost as I can see ice on the roads.

However, i de3cided to take a wander down the graden to llok and see how my plants are getting on in their new beds. The soil was frozen solid! All the berries that were on my Cotoneaster plant have been blown off and now lay frozen in the soil.

I hope it will be ok . My holly is thriving well so that's good. The bulbs are covered over so they should be ok.

So back indoors and did the ironing as wasn't too much and no bedding so didn't take too long. I then decided to go through all the shampoos, shower gels etc as we have 3 large baskets at the end of the bath full to the brim!!

So I threw out quite a few very old ones that were virtually empty and cleaned the plastic baskets, resorted it all and now it s all back in place looking much tidier.

So off to make a cuppa and a sandwich for lunch in a minute and then see what needs doing this afternoon whilst I'm feeling energetic lol. i do need to finalise my Tesco order for Saturday as well.

Good to see you posting Sylvia and enjoy having your daughter around. Glad you survived the storm and people were looking after you well and checking on you.

When is your birthday? We have a few December birthdays on here including mine next week!

Hope everyone looking in is keeping well.

Florence in the hebrides

Tucked away! That usually means I would never find them ;-) :-D

Well the builder has been, nice chap, seems it was the guttering rather than the pointing. We knew one clip was more or less off but he said another was missing and another broken, The guttering is also old and brittle.

Luckily we have a de humidifier, not a really good one, but is helping, so has a couple of sunny afternnoons. The sun hits the wet patch if it comes out.

Hi
I can't remember when I last posted on GR! I was unable to get on sometimes (apart from this week's fiasco!), and sometimes I was just too tired.

We had a "bomb cyclone" on Tuesday last week, it's called that because the atmospheric pressure drops rapidly in the centre of the system. We were threatened with heavy rain, high winds, and power outages especially overnight. One of the nurses came round during the evening to check whether we had torches ........ I had 4, so she was satisfied!

We were really lucky here, the rain was very heavy, but the worst of the winds passed us by, so no problems. But areas less than half a mile away were without power, with downed trees and damage. It was really weird how the storm hit. Then we had another wind storm on Thursday/Friday before many people on Vancouver Island had even bee re-connected.

This month has been really wet!

This week, our daughter is with us. She arrived late Sunday afternoon, so checked in her hotel, had a quick dinner at her (and our) favourite Japanese place then came up to see us. She will be with us in the afternoons and early evening until tomorrow (Wednesday). Then on Thursday she changes hotels to one downtown, sees 2 school friends during the day as well as having a quick coffee with one of our financial advisors to get to know him. Friday and Saturday are why she is able to be here ............ a business retreat! Her plane ticket was paid for by them, but we're paying the costs up until Thursday! It's been really nice to see her, and she has been helping me with sorting through some of the boxes that came with me back in August! She also took her Dad out for a walk this afternoon, which he really enjoyed.

She has left our Christmas presents and my birthday card with us!!!!

Never had them so early!! I have tucked them away in the hall cupboard and will forget about them until next month!

Morning all
Well after a very stormy weekend, the wind has gone, the rain has gone and the sun is shining and....its not that cold either so a good day so far :-D

Im home alone now until next Monday but thats ok as I do have several jobs to do and better with no interruptions. I can also sort out all the presents etc without someone being nosey lol
Yesterday i wasnt feeling good at all and had a temp, and was coughing all weekend, daughter had it too. But today, my migraine has gone and im feeling much better so that's good.

i saw all the flooding in Wales & northampton and it was just awful!! I simply cannot imagine what it would be like to lose your home and everything in it!

Hope everyone on here didnt get flooded or suffer damage from the storm.

Names, not sure what the problem is but hope your builder finds the leak and fixes it quickly for you.

Joan, hope you.re ok in your area. Dont think anyone lost power this time.Hope you are keeping a small torch with you when you are sitting in the evenings for the "just in case."

Right better see to the chores. Bin men have been & gone and at least it wasnt raining!

Florence in the hebrides

It can be really difficult to find out where water is coming in Names, so I hope that the builder can pin it down.
OH went for a four mile walk this morning, part of it off road. I thought that ge would be knee deep in mud given all the snow melt and the non stop rain yesterday, but he said that it wasn’t too bad.

Linda :-D :-D :-D

Hoping the builder turns up in a couple of days. With the heavy rain and wind from a certain direction we now know where the puddle of water comes from - more or less.

Busy cleaning out the gutters this morning so didn’t go shopping, which is probably a good thing as the place the road always floods is still bad. The fields on both sides are very bad, rarely see them quite that bad. The nearest ware course, next to the fields, is also very full. Hopefully will all start to go down before the next rain. But the watercourses are so high. Water meadows near here never dried out over the ‘summer’.